Ofun Meji
II II
I I
II II
I I

The sixteenth major Odu,
container of all mysteries,
the complete calabash of Oduduwa as formulated in the language of Ifa,
is all but inaccessible-
placed out of the way
and out of ordinary thought processes.

Odu, the female principle imagined as a container

igbadu (igba, “calabash”, and Odu )
becomes an orisha,
the divinity worshipped by diviners who have attained the highest degree of self- knowledge-

that is,

the profoundest understanding of Ifa.

Only such diviners may install the terribly powerful calabash of existence,
once closed never to be reopened except under horrific circumstances,
“symbol of the sky and earth in their fecund union,
container of the supreme wisdom of Ifa,
[the installation of which validates] an esoteric principle of universal symbiosis.”

To “see” Odu
is to look in all directions at once,
to look back at the moment of one’s own conception,
to grasp-

from this new perspective-

the horizontal plane of existence,
the brotherhood of all who tread the earth;
below to the realm of the earth,
and to that of the dead…
upward to the stars and the cosmic order exemplified above.

From A Recitation of Ifa,Oracle of the Yoruba by Judith Gleason